I feel so sorry for anyone who misses the experience of history, the horizons of history. We think little of those who, given the chance to travel, go nowhere. We deprecate provincialism. But it is possible to be as provincial in time as it is in space. Because you were born into this particular era doesn’t mean it has to be the limit of your experience. Move about in time, go places. Why restrict your circle of acquaintances to only those who occupy the same stage we call the present?”
–David McCullough, “Recommended Itinerary” in Brave Companions
I concur.
As we approach Independence Day on July 4, why not read some history?
*Walt Whitman, “America”; the painting is by Childe Hassam.
Today is the 153rd anniversary of the death of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (age 39) following the Battle of Chancellorsville, when he was shot by friendly fire on the moonlit night of May 2, 1863.
“Chancellorsville” portrait, taken at a Spotsylvania County farm on April 26, 1863, seven days before he was wounded. What a face!
Here he is younger and beardless. Pretty dreamy.
I have always admired Stonewall Jackson as an exemplar of the Scotch-Irish Protestants who came to this country in the eighteenth century, many of them as indentured servants, and worked and fought hard to make a home here. In fact his paternal great-grandparents (John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins) met on the prison ship from London and fell in love. They married six years later when they gained their freedom.
The family migrated west across the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle near Moorefield, Virginia in 1758. In 1770, they moved farther west to the Tygart Valley. They began to acquire large parcels of virgin farming land near the present-day town of Buckhannon, including 3,000 acres in Elizabeth’s name. John and his two teenage sons fought in the Revolutionary War; John finished the war as a captain. While the men were in the army, Elizabeth converted their home to a haven for refugees from Indian attacks known as “Jackson’s Fort.”
Yes, the Jacksons were awesome.
Furthermore, Stonewall was a profoundly religious man and a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. One of his many nicknames was “Old Blue Lights,” a term applied to a military man whose evangelical zeal burned with the intensity of the blue light used for night-time display. He disliked fighting on Sunday, although that did not stop him from doing so after much personal debate.
Here is a poem by Herman Melville that pretty well sums up my feelings about the great Stonewall:
Mortally Wounded at Chancellorsville
The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long –
Stonewall!
Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong,
How can we praise? Yet coming days
Shall not forget him with this song.
Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead,
Vainly he died and set his seal –
Stonewall!
Earnest in error, as we feel;
True to the thing he deemed was due,
True as John Brown or steel.
Relentlessly he routed us;
But we relent, for he is low –
Stonewall!
Justly his fame we outlaw; so
We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier,
Because no wreath we owe.
Today I am heading east to visit daughters #1 and #2 in College Park.
We will cheer on daughter #1 on as she runs in the Rock ‘n Roll half marathon in D.C. Then we are heading to the Brandywine Valley in Pennsylvania for some museum and garden-going.
We will get our fill of N.C. Wyeth et al…
If you are looking for a good movie to watch in the meantime, I recommend Alleghany Uprising (1939) with a young John Wayne and Claire Trevor. I watched it this past week and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a highly politically-incorrect telling of a little-known piece of American history–
wherein a group of settlers in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Valley struggle to try and persuade the British authorities to ban the trading of alcohol and arms with the marauding Indians.
Some of the character actors are priceless–such as Wilfred Lawson as the Scotsman MacDougall, who really steals the show. A very young George Sanders is appropriately uppity as the British captain who doesn’t have a clue. I would put this film in the they-don’t-make-’em-like-this-anymore category, i.e. good entertainment with an excellent story and characters.
So remember, I will be off the internet through next Thursday. Maybe my dual personality will check in. I hope so!
Sunday was the first Sunday in Lent so we had the Great Litany at the beginning of our service–you know, that’s the one where we implore Christ to preserve us from evil and wickedness, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, and from everlasting damnation, etc, etc, etc.
We also switch to Rite I in our church so we go back to “and with thy spirit” and “we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries.” Of course, I am one of only a handful of people that probably enjoys this, but oh well, c’est la vie.
It snowed Sunday morning, so a lot of people stayed home, and I might have myself but for the fact that I was reading. It was a good reading too: Romans 10:8b–13
The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. 13 For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
After church, I had to go to the grocery store to pick up the cake for the baby shower I was co-hosting with Becky. The driving was worse than ever, but I got the cake and made it home. Then the OM drove me over to the baby shower and dropped me off with all my stuff. It was a fun party and the mama-to-be received a lot of presents.
Daughter #1 sent her a present from NYC and it was a big hit.
Ah, sunrise, sunset. And now it is Monday and I don’t have Presidents Day off. Hats off anyway to Washington and Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes
As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the fact that the present is a constant romance, and that the happenings of to-day which we count of little importance are sure to startle somebody in the future, and engage the pen of the historian, philosopher, and poet.
–William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, preface to The Old Santa Fe Trail by Colonel Henry Inman
The title of today’s post refers, of course, to…the Wizard of Oz, who you will remember was from Kansas.
Well, today is the 155th anniversary of the day Kansas was admitted as our 34th state in 1861.
Abolitionist Free-staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from Missouri had rushed to the territory when it was officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854 in order to determine whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. The area became a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, thus earning it the name Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed. Kansas entered the Union as a free state and the Civil War followed.
After the Civil War the population of Kansas grew rapidly when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. It also became the center of what we think of as “the Wild West,” what with cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail moving through the state to railheads there. Cattle towns like Abilene, Wichita and Dodge City, flourished between 1866 and 1890 as railroads reached towns suitable for gathering and shipping cattle. All the famous gunslingers and lawmen like Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp worked on one side of the law or another in Kansas.
Things eventually calmed down in the state and since the turn of the 20th century people have generally regarded it as one of those states where not much happens.
We who live here in flyover country know that is decidedly not true. Kansas is a big, beautiful state where the weather can be quite severe and the sky is large.
“The High Plains” by Thomas Hart Benton, 1958
Lots of famous (and infamous) people have started out life in Kansas. For instance, did you know that Mabel Walker Willebrandt (1889-1963) was from Kansas? She was the U.S. Assistant Attorney General from 1921-1929 and the highest-ranking woman in the federal government at the time and first woman to head the Tax Division.
She vigorously prosecuted bootleggers during Prohibition–in fact, she was the one who came up with the idea that illegally earned income was subject to income tax. That’s how they got Capone, you know. She is one of those amazing women who nobody knows about–probably because she was a Republican and campaigned vigorously for Herbert Hoover.
Anyway, I watched the movie Dodge City (1939) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland fairly recently, so I will recommend instead watching Red River (1948)–a movie about a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail which ends dramatically in Abilene, Kansas. It is not one of my favorite westerns, but it is well worth watching for John Wayne, Walter Brennan and Montgomery Clift, who is surprisingly effective as a cowboy.
Well, as you know, that is how my mind works.
P.S. Did you know that Home On the Range is the state song of Kansas? How freaking awesome is that?!
President Theodore Roosevelt on a horse in Colorado, c. 1905
“There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gunfighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if they choose.”
―Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
Agreed, but I will always be afraid of grizzly bears no matter what and always.
“No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to “preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” Eisenhower realized that “optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction.” He learned that a commander’s optimism “has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.”
–Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches
Leadership 101, guys. Now, go out there and SMILE!
Fifty years ago today, the Gateway Arch was “topped off” when the final section was inserted on October 28, 1965.
Hubert Humphrey, V.P. of the U.S., watched the proceedings from a helicopter which hovered nearby. The ceremony had been postponed, so I guess the President was busy.
Today there will be a celebration, but it seems to me, it is being downplayed. Cupcakes will be served.
Anyway, the Gateway Arch (630-foot, 192 m) in Saint Louis is the nation’s tallest monument and has welcomed visitors for fifty years with its iconic, awe-inspiring shape. As envisioned by renowned architect Eero Saarinen, the Arch represents the westward expansion of the United States and typifies “the pioneer spirit of the men and women who won the West, and those of a latter day to strive on other frontiers.”
Pretty cool.
I was in the fourth grade at the time and I honestly have very little memory of the proceedings. Now a project to renovate the arch grounds is underway and will, we hope, be completed by 2017. Stay tuned.
The Battle of Glasgow was fought 151 years ago on October 15, 1864 in and near Glasgow, Missouri as part of Gen. Sterling Price’s Missouri Expedition during the Civil War. A Union garrison of 800 men was located in Glasgow, under the command of Colonel Chester Harding. The size of the Confederate forces was reported as being between 1,500 and 1,800 troops.
General Sterling Price
Although the battle resulted in a Confederate victory and the capture of significant war material, it had little long-term benefit as Price was ultimately defeated at Westport a week later, bringing his campaign in Missouri to an end.
Glasgow is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, about 35 miles north of Columbia. Early in its history, Glasgow was a mecca of commercial activity, shipping vast quantities of hemp and tobacco from its steamboat port. Glasgow now ships large quantities of corn by river barge and rail line. Shipping by river is still possible because Glasgow is one of the few towns left with its commercial business district right on the river bank. Many river towns were left stranded, miles from the fickle path of Missouri River.
It definitely looks like a place to add to the itinerary of my imagined car trip to Kansas City!
dual personalities 